Julien earns his Bear!

Julien worked really hard this year in order for him to earn his Bear. He now can't wait to join the Webelos group. I can't believe he is almost at that age. He is growing up way too fast.

Graduation Party!

For Jon's graduation, my parents put together a party for him to celebrate his accomplishments. It turn out so good. I know he and his friends had a lot of fun. One of my good friends from work helped be put together some awesome cupcake toppers. Take a look!

My mom got croissant sandwiches, wraps, chips, veggies trays, and of course her famous punch. We also had bratwurst, along with Jon's amazing baked beans, and kielbasa sausages. It was a lot of food.

Here are the cupcakes, over 100 of them. Yep! It took forever. We had three different flavors: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, all made from scratch the strawberry cupcakes were made with really strawberries (they were delicious).

 

Mini Diplomas toppers

Caps

 

BYU obviously

and the name of the company Jon will be working for

DOW

Jon's friends:

Ben and Lenzy and Remi

Alex

 

Tyler and Joanna

 

My aunt and uncle Paul and Marie Lize

 

Reggie

Aaron and Tiffany

Manil and Indu

The Hoffmans

Joe

You might be wondering why they are holding up a one dollar bill; well they both signed the dollar and made a packed to mail the dollar back and forth one to the other with every 50 000 dollars they make.

Aaron

Stacy and Andrew

Dave and Ian

Nicole

GRADUATION!

Today Jon graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering. It has been a long and hard road for us, but we made it. I am so proud of Jon's hard work and dedication in being a good student and fulfilling his goal. Not only has he finished his schooling in a difficult field of study, but also from a difficult and competitive institution, and he has done very well, furthermore, Jon was offered an amazing job with Dow Chemical.
Here is a video of Jon receiving his diploma. I have never seen him smile so big in my life. I got at little chocked up when I saw him.

 After the ceremony we went to a lunch in put together by his department.

After the lunch in we headed to the book store to grab some keepsakes for the kids, following by pictures, and milk shakes.

 Our new BYU Grad!

A cute picture of the kids after the ceremony.

Jon has wanted a picture of our family in front of Timp with snow on top and clear blue skies for a while now. Today we were finally able to grant him his wish.

 

Kia Ora tired after a long long day.

Heat Transfer party

One of the classes Jon took this semester at BYU was called Heat Transfer. So every year the teacher apparently throws a party where you can walk on coals (since there is a transfer of heat between coals and feet if one chooses to walk on them). Of course Jon would not miss such an event. Above is contemplating what he is about to do.

Ouch! LOL! That looks like it hurt! Jon only got 2 small blisters though.

BLD's first show

I don't know how many of you know this, but a couple of friends from my graduating class and I at UVU started our own dance company about a year ago. We are called Body Logic Dance Company. http://bodylogicdance.blogspot.com/
We are still a work in progress, but moving at lighting speed. Each of the girls on the company have a responsibility, we meet to talk about possible performance and teaching opportunities, take class, and choreograph.  In the fall we were able to find a venue to host a show for us. So the first week of January, choreographers got started in creating their works. I choreographed a piece title "Terminal Velocity."
We performed our show "Uncovered" Friday 8th and Saturday 9th of April. It was a wonderful show. We had a pretty good turn out.  Jon and Kiki were there every night including tech/dress rehearsal. The boys, my parents, Alex, and my girls came also. It was so great for them to show me their support. So many people came that we filled the space and actually made a revenue. Yeah! I am so proud of all the girls. It was a lot of hard work and dedication to put a show together. But we did it, and we were awesome. I am eager to get started on our next one.
Although I am moving to TX, I am hoping to stay connected and go back every year to set pieces on the company. Dancing is more than what I love to do, it is a passion, it is deeply rooted inside of me, it has been a part of me for nearly 25 years, parting from it would be impossible. I know I will have the opportunity to teach in TX, but creating and performing is different, it is a way I communicate, and release my artistic impressions.
Above is a picture of Kiki and I stretching before the show. I will hopefully post pictures of the actual performance soon.

April Swim Meet

Julien had another swim meet. Here he is swimming front stroke:

Julien swimming back:

Julien swimming fly:

Isn't he so cute? It kills me to see him so at ease in the water.

Happy Easter!

The kids had a good Easter. They were so excited about the Easter Egg Hunt that Alex had to hold down the door before they could go look for all the yummy treats.

 

Emily and Jay come to visit

Jon's cousin Emily, with her husband Jay, and two kids Nicolai, and Alexi came for a visit. It was nice to be able to see them knowing that it might be a while before our next visit. We all went to the ice skating rink.  It was a lot of fun.

 

This semester Jon has been taking a hockey class at BYU. He is loving it, and has become quite good at skating. Simply hearing some of their warm up drills sound nearly impossible. One of the things that Jon had not master yet was skating backward so he decided to do a little practicing while at the rink.

Take a look:

I LOVE YOU BABE!

Coolest uncle

Julien and Logan love Alex so much. He is almost like a big brother to them. He does so much for them. We will miss having him around everyday to play and help out with homework.